Over the last decade, ASEAN's role in managing economic, diplomatic and security relations between its member-states and outside major powers has expanded significantly, as has the number and depth of ASEAN-based wider regional groupings. In 2005 — building on the long-standing dialogue partner relations and the early successes of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and the ASEAN+3 process — ASEAN established the East Asia Summit (EAS). In 2010, it established the ASEAN Defence Ministers Plus process. By 2011, both new groupings had the same membership: the ASEAN member-states, the United States, China, Japan, South Korea, India, Russia, Australia and New Zealand. The last decade has also seen ASEAN become the primary platform for its member-states’ external trade diplomacy with the successful negotiation of five ASEAN+1 trade agreements and, in 2013, the commencement of the ASEAN-based Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations between ASEAN and its +1 trade partners.

The Southeast Asian states’ more active use of ASEAN as a platform to engage major extra-regional powers has been reciprocated by these powers and their growing diplomatic and financial commitment to ASEAN. China, Japan and South Korea are members of all these wider ASEAN-led groupings and have successfully completed ASEAN+1 trade agreements with ASEAN. The United States and Russia are members of the ARF, EAS and ASEAN Defence Ministers Plus process.

The first part of this section includes Herman Kraft's article, which looks at the increasing importance of ASEAN centrality over the last decade. The article by Mohamed Jawhar Hassan looks at ASEAN's successful trust-building amongst its members, while Ian Storey's article focuses on the largest and most newsworthy challenge to ASEAN centrality — the maritime boundary disputes between China and ASEAN member-states in the South China Sea.

The next part looks at the growing number of ASEAN-based wider regional bodies and ASEAN's emerging role as a model for other South-South regional bodies. The security-based ARF, the first of these, is facing growing questions about its continued relevance while the finance-oriented ASEAN+3 pro-cess has deepened considerably with the negotiation of the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization. The broader ASEAN-based regional groupings established in the last decade — the EAS and ASEAN Defence Ministers Plus process — are still in the process of finding their proper place, particularly in relation to existing and overlapping regional institutions such as APEC and the Shangri- la Dialogue.